


But my prison isn't the house

by Ingi



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Draco Malfoy Has Issues, Implied/Referenced Past Abuse, Intrusive Thoughts, Light Angst, M/M, Monster Hunter Harry Potter, Monsters, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-28
Updated: 2018-02-28
Packaged: 2019-03-12 09:42:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,771
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13544712
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ingi/pseuds/Ingi
Summary: Draco Malfoy is planting a gardenia in his mother's flower bed when it first happens.Basically, Harry Potter is a monster hunter and Draco Malfoy needs him. These are only tangentially related.





	But my prison isn't the house

**Author's Note:**

> I... I don't even know. I recently made myself a Trello, because apparently treating my writing like college coursework helps my productivity, and this was the first of the drafts in the scheduled-to-be-finished list, so.
> 
> Title from the quote "Yes, I am a prisoner of sorts, but my prison isn't the house. It's my own thoughts that lock me up!" from V. C. Andrews. I know, I know, _wow_. Such imagination. Such subtlety. You can tell I just gave up there lmao.

Draco Malfoy is planting a gardenia in his mother's flower bed when it first happens.

' _Die_.'

Most people would be startled at a thought like that suddenly popping in their minds, but Draco Malfoy cannot, in any way, shape, or form, be considered _most people_. The seemingly independent voice is not new. The sentiment isn't, either. And that's precisely the problem, that's why this becomes the very beginning of a chain of events that will, eventually and to everyone's bafflement, bring Harry Potter back into his life.

But for now, he only shifts to kneel on the ground and gently pats the soil so it covers the gardenias' roots better.

' _Die_ ,' the voice insists.

"Shut the fuck up," he mumbles, because that's what he does when there's no one around to hear him. Sometimes even when there is.

And the voice, weirdly enough, obeys.

This is Draco's first inkling that something is wrong; it is never this easy. What should've been mild surprise manifesting as violent amazement is another clue, but one that Draco, at this point in time, misses.

He misses quite a lot of those.

 

 

 

On the first week of his house arrest, Draco tried to make Angel's Trumpet draught.

He confused the Angel's Trumpets with datura and the potion turned blue, and then purple, and then it exploded on his face and turned his nose into a doorknob. He smashed the vial against the bocote wood floor and sobbed so furiously and for so long that the house elves tiptoed around him for months afterwards. That is the only reason he knows they heard; even then, they knew better than to try and show him any sympathy.

The chest with all his potions ingredients was pushed under the bed, hidden with a spell to collect dust.

He tried repairing something next, thinking of the Vanishing Cabinet, the creak of the doors mending themselves the last time he had felt like he could do anything, but everything in the Manor worth fixing was already working perfectly, and every time he thought of taking something apart to put it back together, in his mind he heard a voice, not dissimilar to the one he would much later but very different in nature, and that voice said _Why must you destroy everything you touch_.

Two days after his magic restriction ended, Draco received his hawthorn wand in a neat, cream-coloured envelope carried by an unfamiliar owl. He gripped it tight, closed his eyes, whispered  _Expecto Patronum_ again and again until his throat was so tender he could barely speak at all.

Nothing happened.

And there came the thought, _This won't ever work for you_. And Draco was alone, so he told the voice to shut up, but it only made it louder. _You will never be happy_. _Something went wrong with you and it can't be fixed, no matter what you do_. _Why try_. _Why don't you die_. _Just die_. _Die and this will all go away_. _Die and it will all be okay_. _Die_. _Die die die die_. _Please die_. _It's so easy, it will make it all better_. _Please_. _Stop this_. _Stop trying_. _Die_.

"I'm doing better, mother," Draco said, when she asked.

And he was.

It was only thoughts, that time, instead of imagining a wand pointed at his heart and rolling _Avada Kedavra_ in his tongue, trying to plan how he'd say it.

 

 

 

"Can you pass me the salt, darling?" Narcissa says.

The house elves could easily do that, but lately she's been making a point in giving Draco simple tasks that even he can't mess up, just so she can smile at him like he's the most perfect creature in the world.

Draco floats the salt shaker in her direction, but midway through the table something goes wrong, his light concentration wavers or his magic becomes careless in the casual use, and the shaker tilts just enough to spill some salt on the tablecloth before it rightens itself, landing gently next to Narcissa's arm.

' _Can't you do anything right_.'

"Thank you, darling," she hums, subtly shifting away from the spilled salt.

Malky appears to fill her white wine glass, and casually Vanishes the scattered grains of salt. Draco lets his left hand drop to his lap, fingers curling around the wand in his pocket, and as he finishes his mushroom soup he mentally goes through a step-by-step plan to improve his casual casting.

The second appearance of a creature that Harry Potter will eventually classify as a death muncher goes unnoticed.

 

 

 

He took up gardening because Narcissa found a patch of mint in the back of her garden, half-wilted, and refused to take care of it.

"It will die or it won't," she told him, indifferent.

Draco quite liked the idea of the outcome not mattering for once, and plants had never inspired him much sympathy either way. _I'm probably going to cock this up_ , he'd think happily, _but it's because I don't care, and it doesn't matter_. His mind would be blessedly quiet, then, even when he did cock it up. Years ago, he wouldn't have needed to be so careful, but as it happens, as a kid he had been so much better at convincing himself that nothing at all mattered. It was a shock to learn just how many things _did_ matter to him.

His mother left him to it, scowl deep and worried, and kept pampering the roses, the tulips, her orchids and marigolds and carnations, all of those that were important to her, so that Draco didn't have to.

 

 

 

Malky holds up Draco's best dinner jacket, blinking rapidly.

"Master Draco will be wanting Malky to enchant it against wrinkles again?"

Draco, flipping through the twenty-second chapter of _162 Uses of Hippogriff Tongue That Will Surprise You_ , considers it for a moment.

"Don't bother, Malky," he decides, "I wasn't planning to go out tonight."

' _You never do. Half of the Wizarding World hates you and the other half approves of your choices but thinks you're an incompetent pillock. Pansy only bears with you because of what little influence your family still has, and even she will get soon tired of sending letters you take weeks to answer and inviting you to events you never bother showing up to._ '

There's a feeling of frustration after the voice makes its point. That's not new. The novelty comes from the fact that said frustration comes literally out of nowhere, after a more than noticeable lapse of time that Draco spends calmly examining the ingredients list of the jawbind potion, and he isn't entirely sure that it belongs to him.

But that's, once again, familiar, so he lets it go.

 

 

 

The papers will say that it was the house arrest and all the other punishments given to the Malfoy family that made him change his tune, but that's inacurate, if not completely wrong.

Draco had been considering trying to fix his multiple mistakes since pretty much the moment after he'd made them. Finding himself with more than enough time to solidify the decision and go through it was only a minor help.

During those interminable months, he made a surprising amount of home visits for what was supposed to his house arrest period. The hardest visit was, by far, the one he made to Luna Lovegood, who would just not stop insisting that she had forgiven him the moment before he had even done anything at all, and wouldn't he like a good luck charm to protect him against Wracklybos, she had just finished making a batch. Astonishly, Hermione Granger didn't try to curse him on sight. The visit to his father, on the other side, wasn't particularly remarkable because it is, after all, rather hard to say or do much when you're buried deep in some wizarding graveyard's soil.

He'd wanted to send letters instead, at first, but it seemed cheap somehow, too close to worthless, so in the end he only sent two.

The first one was to the Ministry functionary in charge of his particular case, to obtain the permission to formally apologize and try to make amends in person. _Change, you?_ , she had laughed, bitter and distrustful, _Redemption? What would you know about redemption_. And Draco had heard, unsaid except for inside his own head, _You don't deserve it_. But before the aimlessness could settle in, Minister Shacklebolt himself had somehow found out about Draco's request and personally issued an official approval, and Draco quickly found himself knocking on doors he had never thought he'd knock on.

The second and last letter he sent was to Harry Potter, because if he had tried to apologise to his face, he could've never figured out where to start.

Or how to stop.

 

 

 

It's weeks after the death muncher has, unknown to Draco himself, taken residence in Draco's mind, when he finally begins to realise he's in trouble.

This revelation comes to him in the shape of a dark shadow with a blood-red mouth, staring malevolently at him from his mirror when he gets out of the shower. It shows its fangs at him and huffs.

"Why won't you die?" it speaks with Draco's voice, sounding genuinely confused and irate.

A suspicion starts forming.

But Draco has only spent a day sorting through his father's old contacts notebook, looking for the right wizard to fix whatever is going on, when Harry Potter shows up at the Manor's door, in patched-up jeans and messy hair and scowling at the world as if expecting it to jump to attack him at any moment.

"There's a monster in the Manor," Potter says, and Draco thinks _Fuck you_ , but it turns out, he means a literal monster. "There've been Dark magic disturbances coming from your home for ages," he explains from the doorstep, because Draco will _not_ let him in to destroy what little peace he has. "The kind that a monster makes, I mean. It's- uh, it's a thing that I notice now, apparently. It's why I'm hunting monsters and not-"

"Congratulations, Potter," Draco cuts him off, gritting his teeth. His hands are sweating. "Perhaps now you can learn to apply that sensitivity and power of observation to knowing when you're not wanted-"

' _You never change,_ ' the voice says. ' _Weak. Undeserving. Liar._ '

Potter sighs, and Draco thinks: the Room of Requirement, smoke in his throat, Harry Potter's hand reaching out. He finally took that hand and then he did nothing with it, no matter the promises he had made to himself.

He might have as well stayed in the fire.

"Malfoy, there's a dark creature trying to drive you to suicide to feed on your _bloody death_."

"I can deal with this myself!" Draco hisses, quiet and panicked.

Potter needs to leave. Potter needs to- Potter raises his eyebrows and looks judgemental.

"Yeah, Malfoy, I can see how you're handling this. This thing has been working on you for so long that I noticed from the other side of Britain. Merlin, you don't even know what it is or how it works, do you?"

' _You should have researched it by now. Even Potter knows. Why does Potter know and not you. How did you even pass you NEWTS._ '

"I'm _certain_ you're going to tell me either way."

"It puts thoughts into your head, Malfoy," Potter says, oddly grim. "It passes them off as yours, it makes you believe them, and then-"

"How long?" Draco interrupts sharply. He feels like all blood has been drained from his body. The smallest tendril of hope begins to unfurl in his chest, slow and wary. " _How long_ have you sensed this creature for?"

Potter stares at him, uncomprehendenly.

" _Weeks_ , Malfoy."

What little hope was there withers and dies. Draco grips the door handle and tries not to scream.

"Goodbye, Potter."

And he shuts the door in his face.

 

 

 

"I read your letter."

It comes from outside, loud despite of the thick wood and all the protections put on it, so Potter must have casted quite a spell. But Draco isn't thinking of that. He isn't thinking at all, in fact. He just opens the door, instintively, wildly, and ivy grows in his throat.

"Why didn't you answer?" he hears himself snapping.

' _Why would he,_ ' says the voice- the monster. ' _You are nothing to him. Your weak apologies mean nothing. And you are a fool if you think you have changed at all. You have always been a selfish little bastard, too self-absorbed to care about anything but yourself, and that's all you'll ever be. Stop playing at redemption. There is something wrong in you and it cannot be fixed._ '

Potter's face takes on a disapproving, irritated expression, but Draco must be quite a sight, pale and wide-eyed and _furious_ , because he only shrugs and answers,

"I thought that if you meant it, you should have the bollocks to say it in person."

Draco stares and stares and stares. Potter doesn't understand _anything_.

He lets him in anyway.

 

 

 

Harry Potter sits on Narcissa's flower-patterned armchair, tense and obviously uncomfortable, fidgetting every few seconds but while keeping his right wrist steady enough not to spill tea all over the living room's carpet.

All that he will say, in a few months time, when Draco teases him about his apalling lack of social skills, is that he doesn't even like chamomile tea.

"It's a death muncher," Potter blurts out, and immediately blushes, if only slightly. "That's what I called it- I don't like fancy Latin names much. It's in the family of dementors. They're like- uh, cousins, I guess."

"Fascinating," Draco replies flatly. His heart, for some reason, is galloping in his chest. "How do I get rid of it?"

"You don't. _I_ do."

He sounds so confident, so calm. Draco can feel his skin prickling, a sign that Potter's magic is powerful and awake enough right now to permeate the very air around them. It's been a long time since Draco has been this afraid, except that he doesn't have any reasons to fear Potter apart from the old, obvious ones.

"Then get on with it," he says, gritting his teeth, trying to ignore it all.

"Afraid, Malfoy?" Potter says, softly. Perhaps he did gain some sort of observational powers in the few months Draco wasn't there to see it, and Draco despises him for it, but he nods, sharp and quick. "That's not you, it's the death muncher," he explains. "Sometimes emotions it didn't mean to make you feel slip through, like his own, when they're strong enough."

Draco thinks of ignoring the voice, challenging it, of the feelings that were awakened in him but were not his, were so even less than usual.

"It's been surprised and irritated a lot, then," he replies, wry.

Potter watches him levelly.

"Yeah, I bet," he mumbles. "It probably hasn't ever found anyone like you before. They tend to be way faster in feeding, too fast for their magic to be tracked, even by me. But it's been _weeks_ for you. It must be very frustrated."

"Are you sympathising with a _monster_ , Potter? One that is trying to _kill_ _me_?"

"I'm just saying," Potter says, a half smile in his face, "you're very frustrating." The smile disappears as fast as it had come, and Potter regards him with an uncharacteristically serious look. "How are you doing it? How can you stand-"

"I didn't even _know_ I had this thing creeping on me, Potter. If I had, I can assure you it would no longer be-"

" _How_? How can you not notice-"

Draco stands up, fists clenched by his sides.

"This is not new to me, Potter," he hisses. "None of this is."

"What do you mea-"

"One more voice barely makes a difference," is all Draco says, and he can see the exact moment Potter gets it.

But Potter doesn't react like Draco was expecting him to at all. In fact, it wouldn't be hard to argue that he doesn't react at all. His face scrunches up in a very particular way for a moment, but that's all Draco gets before Potter leans back against the backrest and stares into his tea like he's giving Divination a second chance.

"This is very good tea," he says, somehow managing to sound doubtful. "I should come by more often."

It should be a weak joke. Draco is pretty sure that's what it is.

And yet.

 

 

 

There was no start of the voice.

The non-demonic one in origin, at least. Draco does remember being seven and standing in front of a mirror a day after his birthday and thinking, quite clearly, _Try not to ruin everything this time, you'd better get it right,_ and it's one of his earliest memories, but it's not the first.

Draco was two and he was a small, chubby baby and he was happy. This, he knows, because when he was fourteen, he found a crate hidden under his mother's dressing table with hundreds of old photographs of him, and in all of them he was laughing. Guileless. Untainted. Somehow, it hurt more than it would've to learn that the voice was right and there was indeed something wrong with Draco all along. Because there hadn't been, but it had _still_ happened.

Fourteen-year-old Draco thumbed through an old photography album, sitting on the floor under the Sun, and suddenly remembered that, in the beginning, the voice had sounded like Lucius.

Until it hadn't.

Sixteen-year-old Draco watched Harry Potter across the Great Hall and the voice reminded him of his inadequacy.

But, by then, it was his own.

 

 

 

Draco serves Potter more tea and resigns himself to yet another wasted afternoon, because even in his more private thoughts it is painful to admit that he enjoys Potter's visits more than he has enjoyed anything in a long time.

"I should poison the tea," he sighs, occupying his usual seat before Potter.

' _You can never just say how you feel, can you,_ ' the monster's voice says, right on cue. ' _They will all leave when they realise you have nothing to give but masks and lies._ '

Fortunately, Draco was very young when he internalised that just because it makes sense, you do not have to believe it, act on it, or even listen to it at all. It's a rather inconvenient life guideline, as it tends to bring more trouble than anything else, but on occasions like this it's extremely useful.

"Then you would have to find someone else to investigate how to get rid of the death muncher," Potter says.

"And they'd do it faster, I bet."

"They wouldn't even know where to start, Malfoy." Potter blinks, seems to remember something. "I meant to ask- do you think your father might have brought the death muncher into the Manor? I'm pretty sure they like attaching themselves to dark objects, and since-"

"Are you saying," Draco whispers, feeling the edge of a blade under his tongue, "that it's my _father's_ fault that I'm- like this?"

Potter startles.

"Malfoy, what I'm saying is that your father-"

"My father is dead," Draco interrupts him. It's nothing new and it shouldn't hurt like it does, but somehow it's worse than it was the very same day it happened, the funeral no one went to except to sneer and see it with their own eyes, those times Draco's eyes were dry and his spine was straight, but now it's like he has forgotten how to do it, like he has forgotten how to hold it all back without even knowing he was doing so. "They killed him," he adds, and immediately regrets it, his voice being far too unsteady for it.

"No, Malfoy," Potter replies, and nothing in him is gentle now, nothing at all. "Your father _chose_ that path."

"And I didn't?!" Draco screams. "Who the fuck decides who gets redemption?! The Ministry?! _How_?!"

The teacup on the table shakes, just once, and breaks into a million pieces.

"Draco," Potter says, very quietly, after a moment of total silence, "did he ever ask? Did he ever try?"

And Draco holds onto his knees and breathes until the world is less blurry, because he knows the answer to that like he knows his own heart. Lucius didn't. Lucius never would have. He isn't planning on giving Potter the satisfaction, though, which is why he startles himself when he voices those thoughts.

Potter doesn't quite _smile_ , doesn't quite stop looking sad as if he has any right to, but he repairs Draco's teacup without a word and doesn't try to continue the discussion.

They talk about the weirdest monsters Potter has encountered in his job for a while. It's reassuring to know that at least Draco didn't get stuck with that one demon that makes people tap-dance. That might have actually killed him on the spot.

"I don't come here for the tea," Potter says, serene, out of nowhere.

"Oh."

It seems rather obvious, but Draco realises, the second after he hears it, that while he had thought he knew, he hadn't really _known_ until right now.

 

 

 

Two weeks after Harry Potter appears at Draco's door for the first time, they sleep together.

Two weeks and three days later, they fuck.

And then again, and again, and again, and again-

Three weeks and six days later, the monster in Draco's head will not stop talking, so Draco shakes Harry awake and immediately pushes his head under Harry's chin, hiding his face from him. And then he asks.

"Some people will never forgive you," Harry replies, still more than half-asleep, a hand tangled in Draco's hair. "You'll have to- to deal with that. But it doesn't mean that you can't change, or that your apologies mean nothing."

"Are you one of those?" Draco says, heart beating in his throat.

Harry pulls him closer.

"No."

So Draco tells him to burn his letter and begins to talk.

 

 

 

Four weeks after Harry Potter appears at Draco's door for the first time, they close the door of Lucius' old study behind them, and Harry points his wand at Draco's forehead and scowls.

"I can only stop one of them," he says.

Draco smiles.

He knows it is not true, but that's not an option that he wants to choose at this moment. Or that Harry will ever accept.

"Stop it, then," he replies, ignoring the rushing of blood in his ears.

Harry does.

They go back to bed after that, and even while he falls asleep, an arm securely weighing on Harry's chest, he thinks he can hear a voice say,

 _Now you stop the other_.

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Anyway.
> 
> On a brighter note, I didn't remember Minister Shacklebolt's name, so in my drafts it was written as Minister ShakeLeBooty the whole time.


End file.
